The Crusade of the Chosen
The Crusade of the Chosen refers to the war declared by the ancient Time Lord cult, The Chosen, on the universe shortly after their resurrection in the Temple of Time. It was their belief that a prophecy made just before the destruction of Gallifrey should be pursued, whereby they could take over the universe and gain ultimately power. Following The Pirate Era a strange series of events were inflicted on the Cantina, Mapp decided to do the one thing he had been avoiding for the last few decades, and so set in a course for the devastated homeworld of the Time Lord civilization, Gallifrey. When they arrived, the planet had become a burning rock of fire and lightning, with a graveyard of ships drifting around it like a fleet of ghostly spectres. Echoes of Gallifrey Mapp, Wolfax and P90 used the Cantina's escape pods to land on the planet, but everything started to go wrong after that. P90's pod crashed in one of the more violent areas of the world where he got trapped inside and died soon after. Mapp and Wolfax journeyed beneath the ravaged surface, eventually discovering a large cavern and within it; the Citadel of the Time Lords still intact after suffering years of neglect and abuse from the poisons and atmospheric dangers of the world above. A cave-in forced Mapp to leave Wolfax behind in the cavern and journey alone into the Citadel, where he eventually located the Temple of Time - the same place where he was held prisoner by the Time Lords for reasons which were beyond his understanding. There he was confronted by two ancient Time Lords who explained about the prophecy of the 'Chosen' and that Mapp, along with WingedPegasus, had been a part of an ancient cult since the dawn of Gallifrey. As Mapp realised just what was at stake now, Myn and WingedPegasus came crashing through the roof of the temple and the two Chosen prepared for a battle. Mapp knew that his crew wouldn't stand a chance against thier evolved powers, and so killed himself to form enough of a distraction for Myn and WingedPegasus to make thier escape. This of course greatly troubled the two Chosen, as thier prophecy indicated that all four of the Chosen must be alive at in the same place at the same time to achieve enternal intergalactic power. Myn and WingedPegasus returned to the ship after rescuing Wolfax and retrieving P90's corpse from the pod (which then allowed him to regenerate later). They left Gallifrey and began to mourn the loss of the captain. It was at this point that Susanne decided to leave the Cantina, stealing a shuttle and flying off to places unknown as a result of apparently losing too much as a member of the crew, finally deciding that enough was enough. The Crusade Begins As the crew debated on whether or not they should wait for Susie to return, P90 decided to take control of the Cantina and take it back to present day Earth which was practically their second home. After much deliberation, the crew agreed and they returned to Earth, only to find that things were not all that they should have been. The Earth had become the core of an expansive empire which sprawled across the entire universe, and huge technologically advanced cities stood over the 21st Century ruins as a new religion had consumed humanity; The prophecy of the Chosen. Just as Wolfax recovered from his wounds on the Cantina, he, along with P90 and Foley, was brought before the hooded Empress of the Chosen, who studied them and declared them enemies of the state before revealing herself to be none other than Susanne, although apparently possessed by an ancient evil Time Lord ghost. As the Cantina was about to be destroyed by order of the Empress, a large fleet jumped into orbit above the planet and began bombarding the cities into rubble. P90 used this as a distraction and hurried back to the Cantina, which then escaped the destruction of the Earth's surface. Susie's palace, known as the Citadel of the Chosen, rose up out of the ground and chased the Cantina through space, before the ship then jumped away through hyperspace. Wolfax is hooked up as a living power-source to the core of the Citadel, but was soon rescued by Foley and the two stole a craft and later relocated the Cantina. After facing off against a fleet of Imperial warships the Cantina was recaptured by the Citadel, and the crew were repeatedly tortured in the hope that they would come to believe in the prophecy of the Chosen. Susie retired to her chambers where she was attacked and brought the edge of death by a defiant priestess, who was apparently being guided by the ghost of Mapp. Before long, the council of the Citidel noticed that Susie was back in control on her body and sealed her away in a dungeon with the rest of the Cantina's crew. After overpowering the gaurds, P90 and Susie were split up. P90 regained control of the cantina as Susie searches the Citadel in secret, being stalked mercilessly by a ghost of some sort. P90 managed to hack into the Citadel's mainframe and reprogram the security droids working for the Empire to rebel against thier masters, and in so doing condemning the countless civilians living in the residential parts of the city. As havok reigned supreme across the halls of the great palace, the entire Citadel lost power and the shield was thrown down, sending most of the populace floating up into the cold of space. P90 guided the Cantina and managed to save only a small portion of the people, along with Susie, from being killed. Shortly later, the Citadel crashes into a small moon. Susie re-entered the ruins of the Citadel, finding survivors and weapons as well as WingedPegasus, whom the Chosen apparently experimented on for their own purposes. She brought WingedPegasus back aboard the Cantina and they took off, abandoning the rest of the survivors on the moon where they expected an Imperial freighter to rescue them in a matter of hours. Instead, the survivors on the moon's surface were greeted by cannon fire as the Imperial fleet reigned fire down on them all, covering up what they considered weakness by destroying all evidence of the Citadel's crash. Witnessing the true evil of the Empire of the Chosen, Susie and P90 pilotted the Cantina back to Earth to see what had become of the small blue planet since the Chosen abandoned it. WingedPegasus was kept sealed in the brig because of her new animal-like mind which caused her to randomly attack anything and everything around her. As the Cantina reached the solar system, Earth was gone and in its stead was a large ball of space dust. As the two crewmembers began to revise thier next course of action and figure out where the remainder of the crew were being held, the ship was suddenly sucked into a large portal... Joining the Rebellion The Cantina was thrusted to another plain of existence, landing on a small patch of grass on a planet resembling Earth. Mapp contacted them on the comm, explaining that he had brought them to the plain of existence where the souls of the dead dwelled, and it was here where he had been fighting the true armies of the Chosen. Susie and P90 left the ship to go and meet Mapp, who had built up a small rebellion on the Mountain of Time (a mountain which has no particular magic power but Mapp later admitted he thought the name sounded pretty awesome and so proclaimed that it was, and always had been, the true name of the mountain since its creation). The armies of the Chosen soon attacked the camp, but were fought off and soon abandoned the attack. P90 then fell into a deep coma, where he was mentally tortured by an entity that had manifested itself in the form of Wolfax, and Mapp showed Susie the temple in the heart of the mountain, showing her how to see back into her universe and overlook the rest of the crew as they struggled against the rising armies of the Chosen. After a few weeks of fighting together, Susie took a small batallion of Mapp's soldiers and journeyed into the forbidden forest on the other side of the mountain, consulting a voodoo lady there about the fate of the universe. As she made predictions about destiny through the night, the Chosen attacked Mapp's camp again - this time, obliterating the last of the rebellion and taking Mapp prisoner. He was taken to the chamber beneath the Temple of Time in the reborn Citadel of the Chosen, which was identical to its predecessor in almost every way, and was brutally tortured for information by the two evil Chosen (who had kept him imprisoned on Gallifrey for the fifty years preceeding the Time War). Susie, speculating that the Chosen now also had control of the Cantina (which would explain its recent disappearence), fought with the ghost stalking her and finally put him to rest with the mythical Sword of the Chosen, before then abandoning her camp and journeying to the Citidel in a last-ditch attempt to rescue Mapp. Eventually, she was captured and tortured with him by one of the four Chosen, a Time Lady calling herself 'Serena'. As Serena consulted the First Chosen about the whereabouts of the Fourth Chosen, WingedPegasus. A large portal forms above the Citadel and it entered full alert mode, sealing off the residential blocks and using all possible energy to empower the shield. The Cantina zoomed out of the portal, pilotted by WingedPegasus, who was then followed by an entire army of different Cantinas from all across the multiverse. They slammed thousands of blaster shots against the shields as the final battle of the frail rebellion begins. A Prophecy Fulfilled P90 escaped from his cell again and rescued Susie from hers, only to find that the Chosen have killed Mapp with the Sword of the Chosen in accordance with the second part of thier so-called 'prophecy'. They stole a ship from the cargo bay and began to destroy large portions of the Citadel from the inside, eventually blowing up several spires and severing the shield from its power source, allowing WingedPegasus to lead the armada through and cause some real damage. As the Citadel began to collapse all around them, the two Chosen seperated. The First Chosen decided to stay with his most dedicated followers in the Temple of Time, where as Serena snuck aboard the Cantina as WingedPegasus met up with the others and escaped. It seemed that the Citadel had some kind of spiritual connection to the surrounding universe, and as it exploded - the entire plain of existence began to implode, sending a devastating wave of destruction inwards and destroying the entire fleet. Just as the Cantina was about to be destroyed along with them, it was plunged through the portal from whence it originally arrived to this plain and began its descent back to the normal universe. The trio had been sent back home by a unknown power, but were worn out and traumatised by the recent events. They docked at a nearby space station to investigate the whereabouts of the rest of the crew, but were stuck on the desolate station as it was a trap laid by the empire of the Chosen only weeks before. As they explored the station to discover what had cut the power to the Cantina as well as finding the correct parts to replace the broken ones, it soon became apparent that they weren't alone. Dark alien creatures roamed the floors of the station, and they soon discovered why. The station was a place where the empire were studying how to build the perfect biological weapon, which resulted in the alien creatures, but the project was later abandoned when it became clear that the creatures could not be controlled through any modern means, and so the empire fled and left the alien hive to dwell and expand within the limits of the station. As WingedPegasus and Susie explored the station, searching for spare parts as well as trying to find out where P90 had wandered off to. Susie became engulfed in the urge to cut down her comrade, realising that Mapp had been wrong all along and that the prophecy of the Chosen had to be furfilled in order for peace to be truly restored to the universe. Mapp had been scared because he didn't realise what would happen if the words of the prophecy became true one day, and so had avoided the possibility. Susie shot WingedPegasus, killing her instantly just as Mapp appeared out of no where and witnessed the event. He revealed that Serena had failed to kill him, and had instead sealed him as a soul entity within the Sword of the Chosen, waiting to be used for their own purposes. Susie accepted this, but confronted him about the lies he had told the crew in order for them to think that the prophecy of the Chosen should be avoided. He was forced to vow never to lie to them again, and thats when they met up with P90 and returned to the Cantina where Mapp revealed a stash of spare parts had been hidden aboard all along. P90 and Susie met up with Wolfax and C.Tom outside, just as Mapp locked them all out of the Cantina. He used the controls to detach a shuttle from the hull so that they could escape the station, before abandoning them there and jumping into hyperspace. The Cantina returned to the origin of all of the chaos now floating through out the universe, Gallifrey, and made his way back to the Citadel of the Time Lords to confront Serena in the Temple of Time. Meanwhile, Susie was visited by the spectre of WingedPegasus who explained where the captain had gone and how the universe would end. Susie shook off the warnings and set in a course for the legendary planet after confronting P90 over the obvious sexual tension that had been shared between the two over the last few months. After they arrived on Gallifrey, Susie abandoned the shuttle and reclaimed the Cantina alone, not wanting anyone else to get hurt before she journeyed into the Citadel to find Mapp and restore balance to the universe by killing the last of the Chosen. She found them fighting in a large anti-chamber just outside the Temple of Time, before knocking Mapp out of the fight and facing off against Serena herself. WingedPegasus appeared in the heat of the battle, morphing into the ghost of the First Chosen and killing Serena for her betrayal back at the Citadel of the Chosen, before Mapp pushed himself back into the fight and both of the final Chosen warriors fought over the power of an immortal god. P90 came back in and restored Susie to health, transforming parts of her blaster into a healing device with his sonic screwdriver and cradling her gently to allow her energy to return. As soon as it did, she threw him aside and raced back into the fight - throwing herself into between the warriors as a flash of light engulfed them all... Sacrifice Full article; Susie's Sacrifice By sacrificing her own life force in the heat of the conflict, Susie was able to draw on all of the excess energy left over from the Chosen's crusade and deconstructed the entire universe, and then reconstructed it in a way that her friends on the Cantina were safe. Category:The GateWorld Cantina Chronicles